I spent some time today digging in the dirt. Some people who know me well find this fascination I have with food and ethical eating to be antithetical to my normal persona when it comes to this one aspect--gardening and digging in the dirt. But I grew up in a family that always had at least a little vegetable garden and some of my earliest summer memories are of chewing on pea pods just picked from the garden and of being handed an aluminum mixing bowl and being told not to come in until it was full of cherry tomatoes. There was the "accidentally" planted watermelon vine in the front lawn and the year we kids somehow convinced Dad to let us plant cantaloupe in New England (we were rewarded with one softball sized, hard as a rock, inedible cantaloupe). And the year Dad accidentally (really accidentally) planted brussel sprouts, not broccoli and my sister called them "stinky little lettuce balls. I don't think she eats them to this day, although I love them now more than I did that summer.
A friend and colleague is moving to Italy for work (yes, poor soul, I know) land of good, local food that he will much enjoy and home of the Slow Food movement. He cares about food and agriculture more than most. So, he started a decent sized vegetable garden in his community (he's a priest) and needed a few brave folks to take over for him this season. He asked me--apartment dweller--if I was up for some digging, planting, weeding, watering and most importantly, harvesting. Being in an apartment without any outside space makes gardening difficult, although I manage to grow quite a bit in the window sills. Still the chance to really garden was appealing. He thought to himself out loud he was surprised he hadn't thought of apartment dwellers earlier when thinking of people to ask.
So, today I spent a few hours digging in the dirt. And I loved it. We thinned some raspberries out and gave the plants to another friend of his. Planted some seed potatoes from another colleague, put in bush beans, peas, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce and radishes. There is one rogue carrot from last season, a few onions and some chive still sprouting around. The plot will need more carrots and onions, some more herbs, maybe some mustard greens or arugula and I will put in some eggplant.
It is a decent sized plot and some others will be helping with its tending. Which is good, since there will be some days where I won't be able to look in on it. But this is really a good thing for me and eating ethically. It will be good to show my students on those long warm summer afternoons that even in the middle of a college campus in the middle of an urban neighborhood in the middle of the city people can grow food.
And even though some of my friends don't believe I like getting dirty, I like the physical work of it. The sun and warm breezes, the smell of the earth, the little bit of color on my face from the sun, and the promise that a small green plant has for the future.
I met some nice people and look forward to working with a few of them and the others I will soon meet on this little garden plot. The plants growing there in their slightly neat rows and areas are like a community themselves, hemmed in by a wall here, a lawn there, a flower garden on the other sides. We people who will work this garden will hopefully be a sort of community, too. I hope to share with them my love of ethical eating, and hope to share some eating of what is produced with them. Ah, what the summer holds. I smile to myself.
(The garden is a bit to the west of the red sculpture in the picture. More pictures to come!)
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